New Python 3.0 string formatting - really necessary?

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:27:43 -0800, walterbyrd wrote:

> On Dec 19, 10:25 am, Michael Torrie <torr... at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Personally the new string formatter is sorely needed in Python.
> 
> Really? You know, it's funny, but when I read problems that people have
> with python, I don't remember seeing that. Loads of people complain
> about the white space issue. Some people complain  about the speed. Lots
> of complaints about certain quirky behavior, but I have not come across
> any complaints about the string formatting.

Many newbie code I have seen avoids it by string concatenation:

greeting = 'Hello, my name is ' + name + ' and I am ' + str(age) + ' old.'

That's some kind of indirect complaint.  :-)

> In fact, from what I have seen, many of the "problems" being "fixed"
> seem to be non-problems.

And even if nobody has problems with the limitations of ``%`` string 
formatting why shouldn't they add a more flexible and powerful way!?  
Python 3.0 is not a bug fix release.

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch